/poems

(see original)

Does this do you any good?

If you do this, do you promise to remember me forever?
Keep me safe, keep me healthy, keep me loved?
Even if I hurt you?

This is my forever home.
You don't like the fact, but neither do I.

Does every connection truly matter to you?
You have a very long way to go until you become the sum of your parts. Will you drag me along with you?

Will it hurt you to?

Do you keep tabs to help me, or just to help yourself?

(see original)

to you i am the wolf
my teeth are sharp, bloodied
my shadow large, intimidating
but am i really all that at all?
will you ever see me as gentle?
the house dog,
clearly surviving years of abuse
when you set up a nicer home for me,
i will sit on the couch beside you, i will sigh,
i will lay quiet and still
and i will be gentle to you,
but only if you be gentle to me

and my blade meets
the tender flesh of your neck
and my blade is your blade
and my blade twists against you

and hits the nightstand instead
inside the drawer; soft, tender wood

and my lover beckons me to sleep
i give up and oblige

this robot comes into the record store
on occasion
not a common sight, most can
see the music in their internals

but this one, real worn down,
straight outta a junkyard
clatter
clatter
clatter
that's 'is loose boards and hard drives,
dangling n'
swinging
almost with a little rhythm
like it's in 'is nature

now 'e doesn't pick up the new releases
'e heads straight to the sales
digging through the obscure stuff nobody
really cares to buy
and 'is hands shake a lot, but you can tell
'e tries to be careful with 'em

'e swings around to face me,
clatter
clatter
clatter
real calculated steps,
'e puts a lot of effort into it,
and 'e puts it on the counter
and i scan 'em
and i ask "what kinda cd player you got?"
cuz 'e picked out a real niche one
and 'e turns his head to look down
at the counter
and doesn't say anything
cuz i don't think 'e even can
with a buncha loose stuff clanging
clattering
it's oughta be damaged to hell by now

so we skip the talkin'
and i put it in a bag for 'im
easy to carry in 'is shaky hands
and 'e takes an extra second to look at me
with 'is one eye
like a "thank you"
and 'e's on 'is way again

drowning in the shallow water of the sink
clawing at the counter
face down in fluid
plug stops the water from going down
faucet overflows, water over my scalp
my mouth makes bubbles
swirling to the top
unifying with rushing water
a vortex
and the water pools on the floor
like blood or wine
it slips under the door frame
sogs into the carpet
the cat in the house walks by it,
sniffs it, as if looking for prey
and the pipes of the house creak,
creak, ache and whine
something like a symphony
angels singing and twirling
although few foolish suicides like mine are divine
narcissus with its head in the pond
breathing in the water like an aquatic animal
the rushing goldfish,
swirling, spinning around my head
glorious light
i cannot tell if it is the lights overhead
or angels laughing at me.

Almost dizzying
Nervousness, my kryptonite

The pins and needles
Come to a rolling boil in my arms,
Hands
Heavy as the world
The disconnect
Hold on to you
Hold onto the work to be put in
Hope that my weak grasp doesn't slip

I talk of two different things
At once
Wheeze for breath
Draw in cold air for my brain
Try to write something coherent
Try to say something funny
Double task
I break the small orange
In twos

Your writing
In the moment,
It flies over my head
Couldn't be for me
It all flies over my head
Couldn't be for me
It all flies in circles around my head
Couldn't .... ?
Swamped mind
It all

Falls

There is snow this morning
Clear white wakes me softer
Than usual
Feels so unclear,
Double check everything
Read it all again

Obsess over it all again
Laugh at how we both got hung up on the word
Two

neat rows of
files
in a cabinet
in the back of my mind
out of reach

work it backwards
retracing steps
into a fog
not there for it then
making up for it
now

extending a hand into
a rock and a hard place
pulling up the roots
replanting them

the greenhouse, the
cycle of rehabilitating
one helped up
can help the next
not out of obligation,
but something else

soul in bloom
free will no longer tangled in nets
vines reach not towards the sun,
but towards
the gardener

every vinyl in this recordbox
has passed through the motions
of my turntable

put you on
watch you spin
picking out melody and rhythm
distinctness in melody
in bass and in drums
it's so you
i can read your lyric sheet
like a book
annotate the lines
the inbetweens
i know you

let this sink basin be the bearer
of holy water
that can rinse clean the grubby plate
to put into godly hands
and placed atop it, food that feeds
not only the body, but the soul and spirit

let this load of laundry
wash my sin clean
dirt and mud of something
gnawing at the nape of my neck
my voice unheard behind a scarf
borrowed from a friend's friend
can't let the filth find its way back to you

In looking for messages from my
teacher,
I find a spam email
Phishing, clearly,
The hook drawn with a
Website linke
The line:
The unusual space between
"User" and a comma

The transsexual enters the
Bathroom,
The women's room,
After stating himself male
To a classmate that doesn't believe him
Another girl is there, sees him,
Trying to hold her gaze
In the mirror
Fixing her hair and makeup
When he walks by her,
She steps
back,
The unusual space between
"You" and I

And I hope I will write no more
about the pain.
On this new turn I am grasping
and planting and pulling and reciting
out of my crushed lungs
the love.
And god I will latch onto it, further
the mending of the heart,
sticky glue on paper, holding collages together,
binding.

And I hope I will draw from the depths of
shame, foreign anguish in my body,
pinching the wick and extinguishing
an older era of struggle.
Blankets put over the burnt,
stamping out remaining flame
with power I gain through the
process of making baby steps towards
a better place.

I am running into the woods
with only the clothes on my back
and a loose, stray antler, my
best friend named Fear
that knows a better sense of
direction than I do,
underneath all the pain.

the hermit muscle of the skull goes
"may i borrow this for a while?"
doesn't wait for an answer,
sweeps your ashes into an urn
that starts to lack your shape

the first night is freezing like being in
cold shock;
the strongest sense of you is the strongest sense of me
and my image of you moves in unison with myself,
forwards motion past anything reflective
because, by god, it feels disgusting to see myself
or see what parts of you have melded into me

i wrap myself in layers of blankets and cloth
and lie silently
the fan at the end of my bed swells and quiets with its whirrs and
cold air only lays against my shoulders
i scour my little screen for a name other than yours,
and a light brighter than it catches my eye:
the moon,
which peers through the curtains and casts more light upon my bed
than anything else

and i put my phone face down
and i am not caught up in a sorry attempt at seperation
for that moment

and maybe in that moment
i am not you or me or anything else
i am only a child of the night and of the earth
i am only living in a natural, organic vessel made of tender meat
and in this room no one can face me
data centers cannot pool my strain
against identity politics
and maybe in this moment, in this moonbeam
i am free

I.
A man with a cramped hand
clutches the handle of a
metal cane head
like it'll run away.
He stands tall in a short body
But an ancient arch in his back
stays, maintained

II.
He has ink all over his
hands, and white, clumpy
paint taints it not.
He uses the back of his
wrist to mess with the way
his hat sits on his
head, hair sharing the motions
of movement

III.
There may not be a
moment of peace here, as
a machine works dilligently.
Papers move to floor, to light,
to screen, to motion in video,
completing the cycle fast
with plenty of room
for error,

The clock ticks slower when you're near.
The moment is tranquil.
The silence is deafening.
I lay here with you, and I feel complete.

I hope when they sell us to the thrift store
They'll put my monitor against yours
And put our keyboards in the same bin
So we can hold eachother
Until one of us is taken away.

i find myself wishing you didn't exist

i've already found out how bad wishing you away is
i know how bad it can get
i know very well that you are the child
and i am the parent you are asking for attention
and how it feels just the same

i can push back and ignore you as much as i want
i can struggle against the wind and the rain
it's just the same as you struggling against the restraints
you can try to push against the door in the face
knowing how it feels just the same

and i find that when i'm flinching at you
i'm flinching at my own reflection in the mirror
and when i finally see you
you turn your head in shame

your movements are not without
long pauses

the wires barely touching
sparking like fireworks

i wonder if i could reach my hand in
hold them together

hold you together
some sort of relief from

the start and stop

There’s a man walking around the neighborhood with weak legs.
The awkwardness of his stride or stance is never the same, each individual time I see him.

He only comes around when I have a tough decision to make.
He always talks about going with your gut. He always talks about how the twist in your gut is your greatest tool.
He always talks about how fighting in the best interest for yourself is fighting the good fight.

I think he might say the same thing every time I talk to him. But I always need to hear it.
I hear it, and he disappears for the next few cycles of seasons until I’m faced with a similar challenge again.
A twist in the gut. Maybe your fear knows something you don’t.

The streetlights guide me home, as does
The handrail guide my decent down the stairs, as does
The instruction manual guide my hand, as does
Your voice, on a call, guide me home.

There is comfort in the simplicity of me and you together
The affectionate pass of playing games and watching one another work
On some random thing; It is not the activity that matters,
But the act of being there at all for one another.
I think that is safety. I think that is home.

i am standing in a body shorter than mine like
clothes that are too tight

ribs bind against my soul,
tightly

i've got no motives this time around
no job to get done
and dusted

no burning conflict
or stubbornness to wrestle

i have to just be, this time around

My secret is that I can see through the world,
but not all the way down. I am
plummeting to the ocean floor like steel,
And my legs swing in a walk cycle slower than molasses.
Systematically is a human thing, obsessive is for machines; I
have all the tools under my belt for
this job, but all of them fall short of what I need; no dedication on their part,
and I'm
doing this again for maybe the third time this week. If you asked me why,
I would say that I need to make sure the
words on the screen were real.
I know these outlines and wireframes
are, the way they burn vibrant and
bright on my fancypants true-color
monitor, searing my retinas and making me
have to lay down after doing this for a
little too long.
I know these are real because they surround my every move, and
I think I saw this exact formation twice already. Let's retrace our steps.
I still haven't seen it yet.

(I GET UP TO GET READY
TO GO TO BED)
It seems I cannot escape water,
I choke and cough on a cup from the fridge
because I always drink a little too fast or slow
The fluid claws shapes into my esophagus, mainly hearts.
On the second cup my meds go down fine but a few sips later I choke again.
Despite closing my laptop, it searches as I do.

(NOW I'M IN BED)
The amount of warmth I get from thinking about you
could be enough to keep the cold air out of
a soft bed for two.
I think I could curl up small enough for the thought of you
to lay comfortably beside me because my bed is actually rather small.
You said you got your room fixed, so maybe we'll both be
curled up, cinematic parallels.
I think I will dream of the river tonight,
where I am showing you all the broken glass I find.
The sun is on our backs and rays shine through green glass.
When my issues with getting too warm
start to nip at my neck, I put the shards under the overhang in the shape of love
and I walk off into the river like a mermaid to the sea.
When I turn, I can't find you on the rocks and mud,
and I dive down to turtles to ask where your heart is.

I.
The lifeboat is starting to fill with
water, again.
I am taking count of our numbers,
dwindling, some folks have been swept
away by nature and waves, namely
all of our paramedics, and a few
of my favorite faces.
We are whimpering at wounds,
ocean air has been opening injuries.
They are not searching for us out there,
I am coming to terms that we cannot call for help,
so I turn my love inwards.

"Let me tie my shirt around your wound,"
I say to nobody in particular.

II.
despite your good hygiene,
the shower has been a been a little harsher of a trigger
to you, kneeling at the memories under the faucet like
they are god

it feels like your lungs are filling with salt water, i know
you cough and cough and cough,
breathe, brother, breathe
you are still alive, crushing weights

will not crack your shell, you are not weak,
you are still healing, take those shaky breaths as they are
food for your heart
breathe, brother, breathe

independence is a man’s best friend

we all type in lowercase now
it wasn’t that way before
uniformity and cringe culture
beat it out of us,
besides unreadability

you could tell who was there before just by the way they
typed, spoke
loud voices, professionals,
zany folks, outcasts
something so unique to be attributed to each

and now all voices are low
kept the same, strung along together
differences unable to be noticed
the way you are gets pulled from your throat
and you fall silent

i’m at the very bottom of a hole,
and i look up towards the sky.
for some odd, strange, reason,
it feels like the first time i’ve ever seen the clouds
or the sun
or the trees overhead
i guess i forgot there was even an opening to this hole at all.
i reassess my memories,
and i find that there are only a total of two;
one in which i am digging deeper into the dirt,
and the other where i am burying myself like an animal
that’s going into a dormant state.
somehow i cannot remember
falling into this hole,
or what i was doing before i fell into this hole,
or what my life was like before i fell into this hole,
or even what my name was, before i fell into this hole!
golly, what a rut i’ve found myself in!
after i look at the sky, i look back down at myself,
and i see that i am covered in dirt and mud,
and i see that i am covered in worms and bugs,
and, under all of that, i see my own human form,
but just barely.
i shift my legs out of the dirt, where i had buried them,
and i find that i’m completely missing one of my legs,
which i remember having in my previous 2 memories.
did nature reclaim it?
did i somehow cut it off in my amnesic state?
did it just go missing? will i find it ever again?
i shrug it off, because there’s too many things going through my head right now.
leaning against the wall,
i do my best to get myself into a standing position.
i’m now able to see outside of the hole,
and as i assess my surroundings,
i see the grass,
and the trees,
and the road,
and the cars,
and the sky, yet again.
all of these things feel new, but i know i’ve seen them before.
again, i shrug it off. no use worrying about it now.
i climb, very shakily, out of the hole.
i now sit on the side of the road,
with the cars bringing a breeze as they pass me.
no cars seem to stop or notice me,
so i sit there for a while,
until i decide to wave a car down.
it’s a red car, a smaller one too.
the person rolls the window down,
“oh my god! how long have you been out here!?”
while they frantically call emergency services,
i once again reassess my memories,
but i come up empty handed.
while we wait for something, an ambulance or a cop perhaps,
they stand outside of their car and talk to me.
i ask them what year it is, what’s the latest news, et cetera,
and they seem horrified, but they do answer.
none of their answers seem real to me.
10 years in the future? really?
a turn for the worse in the country? really?
i don’t get to talk to them about much more before an ambulance comes to pick me up,
and as i’m escorted into it,
i look back, and i see
the hole,
the sky,
the trees,
the red car,
and the person, in utter horror.
and when i turn back to the ambulance, seeing all the hospital equipment,
i wonder,
am i moving on to better or worse things?

poems from the grand various artists literary circle